LALESTON GARDENING CLUB

Cefn Cribwr Gardening Club

Sunshine and warm temperatures are here to light up your garden and it’s a joy to sit outside! If you can bring yourself to put down your glass (just lemonade of course!) and get off the sun lounger here are some gardening jobs to do in July.

Here we are in July already! Doesn’t time fly! The wonderful weather of May continued into June and we sure have worked hard with our watering and I hope feeding too. Now is the time to prune spent wisteria if you have it in your garden, prune to around 30cms. Dead heading is a must at the moment to keep those flowers going through the coming months and it’s a good time to take cuttings from plants in your borders to increase your stocks. Everyone must have noticed the price increase of plants in garden centres, you need to have a good disposable income these days to afford. Cuttings are almost free just the price of a little compost and some TLC. Continue your successional planting of salad crops, harvest potatoes and tend those tomatoes and cucumbers, so worthwhile!

In June Laleston Garden Club enjoyed a trip to Brobury House Gardens, just 8 miles from Hay on Wye where we stopped for lunch and took time to enjoy those quaint streets and shops. The gardens were stunning, well worth the visit. Now in July we are off again to Worcestershire to Arley Arboretum. We will also be enjoying our annual BBQ and will be busy preparing for our Annual Horticultural Show in August, busy times!

Susan Ford

If you are growing runner beans, peas or courgettes they need lots and lots of water, they are hungry plants as well so give them a weekly feed, bog standard tomato feed from the supermarket will work wonders!

Aphids, greenflies and all other sap-sucking pests are active now, they cause leaf distortion and leave a covering of honeydew (nothing to do with honey or dew unfortunately, its their delightfully named poo!) it’s best to rub them away manually with washing up gloves and soapy water, they might be dead afterwards but at least they’ll be clean!

Hydrangeas, beautiful, I love them, but did you know they are an allergy safe plant? because they have sticky pollen making it difficult for the wind to blow the pollen around, perfect for allergy prone gardeners! However they are also extremely poisonous the leaves release cyanide when munched, very bad for your puppy dog (and kids!)

Chris Early